“Summertime and the Wheeling Is Easy–Harley-Davidson Duo-Glide” (1958 ad based on a popular jazz tune)

“Make Summertime HUMMERtime” (1958)

“Keen for Keeping Clean” (1958 Gunk ad)

“Funsville U.S.A” (1967 model M-65 ad)

Association with Motor Racing

Early H-D racing win

From its inception, the brand has always been associated with motor racing. This began on July 4th 1905, when a Harley motorcycle won a 15 mile race in Chicago with a time of 19:02.

Since then they’ve always been there to publicly congratulate H-D bike winners in major biking events including the prestigious AMA.

The Wrecking Crew posing after one of their wins

Harley Davidson officially entered motorcycle racing in 1914.

The success of their association with the sport also lies in the effective use of storytelling.

They’ve managed to strategically associate the H-D brand with winning and success naming and promoting their teams with names such as “the Wrecking Crew”.

Harley Davidson teams and riders went on to win hundreds of AMA tournaments and awards and in 2001 boasted 17 year old Jennifer Snyder, the first woman to win a national event in the Formula USA National Dirt Track Series.

Early use of Content Marketing: “The H-D Enthusiast”

Harley-Davidson were early adopters of long form content marketing and even dabbled with publishing in 1916 with the publication of “The Harley Davidson Enthusiast”.

Content marketing allowed the brand -very early on- to establish a position of authority in the industry. It future-proofed it against other brands who would later enter the market competing on price.

The Enthusiast Magazine went out of production but was soon replaced with Fan clubs such as the Harley Davidson Owners Club “HOG” which published its member-only magazine.

Today, and with the advent of the internet, fans are taking it upon themselves to create their own H-D content and forming their own communities producing the ultimate assets for any online brand; User generated content “UGC”.

When Harley Got it Wrong

Believe it or not, even the best of brands can sometimes get it completely wrong. This was the case when they attempted to milk the brand by extending it into every conceivable product category.

A Harley Davidson Cake Decoration Kit anyone? As you can imagine, fans were not happy and they voiced it.

Harley Davidson’s Mediocre Performance in the Digital Age

The Harley Davidson brand has not quite got online. They do have a presence but it’s not quite inline with what the brand is all about; neither in size nor context.

This could very well be due to the demographics of the target audience and the fact that they’re probably not avid users of mainstream social networks (they’re out riding!) This is reflected in the mediocre performance online.

No use of interest-based social networks (e.g. Pinterest) – although target audience may not be there.

A couple of fairly active fan-based communities.

Harley Davidson can do better online. They must find a better strategy to leverage the brand’s heritage for a more powerful online presence. This can only be accomplished if they make better use of their history and heritage to produce more enticing content that is readily shared by a new target audience. Alternatively, they must empower the customers to tell their Harley stories.

Only then can they hope to attract a new generation of enthusiasts and maintain the brand’s cult status for generations to come.